what is poetry?what is poetry? creative writing ms. bilskemper

Webster’s dictionary definition…Webster’s dictionary definition…

Writing that formulates a concentrated imaginative awareness of experience in language chosen and arranged to create a specific emotional response through meaning, sound, and rhythm.

Let’s translate…

ConcentratedConcentrated

Poetry is usually concise and doesn’t take up pages and pages

ImaginativeImaginative

Poetry is not a factual report. If you do report on something, you must do it in an unusual or compelling way, with language that’s carefully crafted

Chosen and arrangedChosen and arranged

You choose the words you use in a poem and think hard about why you use them; certain words may flow together better, certain sounds may evoke a particular emotional response.

EmotionalEmotional

A poem should elicit an emotional response. Anyone can put lines on a page, but few people can elicit an emotional response from a stranger.

Sound and rhythmSound and rhythm

The flow and music of lines and sentences is what makes a poem a poem

AlliterationAlliteration

Repetition of initial consonant sounds in several words in a sentence or line of poetry

Used to create musical effects, link related ideas, stress certain words, or mimic specific sounds

Blank VerseBlank Verse

Unrhymed poetry

Usually iambic pentameter

Captures the natural rhythm of speech

Catalogue TechniqueCatalogue Technique

It’s nothing more than a list, but used wisely

Figurative LanguageFigurative Language

Words and expressions not meant to be taken literally.

Appeal to the imagination

Similes

Metaphors

Hyperbole

Personification

ImageImage

A word that appeals to one or more of the senses

MeterMeter

A poem’s rhythmical pattern

Foot – a pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables (either two or three)

Most common – iambic pentameter

1 stressed, 1 unstressed – 5 feet

OnomatopoeiaOnomatopoeia

Use of words to imitate the sound they describe

Used to create a musical effect and to reinforce meaning

RhymeRhyme

Internal rhyme

End rhyme

BalladBallad

A story told in song form

Words are simple

Has a strong beat

“Rime of the Ancient Mariner”

EpicsEpics

Long narratives in an elevated style

High born characters that go on adventures

Depict key event in history

Homer’s Iliad, Odyssey

Free VerseFree Verse

Poetry without a regular rhyme and meter

HaikuHaiku

Japanese poetic form with three lines that total 17 syllables

1,3 lines have 5 syllables

2 line has 7 syllables

Often about nature, spiritual insight

LimerickLimerick

One type of humorous poetry

Five lines and a strong rhyme: a-a-b-b-a

Rhyming words sometimes misspelled to create humor

Usually bawdy and involve buckets and girls from Nantucket…

Lyrical PoetryLyrical Poetry

Short, emotional poems

Most poems of all natures fall into this category.

Narrative PoetryNarrative Poetry

Tells a story through a storyline or through a dramatized situation

SonnetSonnet

Lyric poem of 14 lines written in iambic pentameter

PETRARCHAN / ITALIAN

Octave – the first 8 lines that rhyme a-b-b-a, a-b-b-a

Present a problem

Sestet – last 6 lines that rhyme c-d-e, c-d-e

Resolve the problem

Sonnet cont…Sonnet cont…

ELIZABETHAN / SHAKESPEREAN

Same format as previous sonnet

Rhyme changed to a-b-a-b, c-d-c-d, e-f-e-f, g-g

First 12 lines describe the problem and the final couplet resolves the problem.